Top Gear confessions...

It would seem that after international exposure and inquiry – and having finished up at Ifield Community College – the time has come for me to come clean!

Some weeks ago, Anna informed me that she had applied to get tickets to be in the studio audience of Top Gear. For those who don’t know, Top Gear is a UK TV program, mostly about cars – which happens to be about the most watched show in England, and one of the most downloaded TV shows in the world. Anyway it is extremely amusing and very good fun. Anna was aware that I am quite a fan of the show, and thought it would make a nice surprise – which it did!

I have learnt subsequently that there is about a 2 year waiting list for tickets to be in the Top Gear audience - though they are actually free - but it would seem that there was a cancellation and Anna was offered tickets only a few weeks after she applied. Filming takes place on Wednesday afternoons at an airfield/industrial complex only about 45 minutes drive from where we live.

Unfortunately you are supposed to be on location by about 2pm, which is a little difficult to do when school doesn’t finish until 3pm. Fortunately (or sort of unfortunately), in the week that we had tickets I was suffering somewhat with a bout of nasty northern ‘flu. I had struggled through for a few days at work, despite severely depleted vocal capabilities, but decided that by Wednesday I needed to have a rest. So I took the day off from work and spent most of the day in bed. This also meant that I was rested up (though still coughy) at 1:30pm when we left for the studio.

After we got there, we had to wait around for about an hour (in the freezing wind) before being herded down toward the studio building – if we’d had to wait much longer I may have succumbed to the temptation to invest in a Stig T-shirt! After getting into the studio, we still had quite a bit of waiting around before shooting started. This meant that we had a chance to look around the studio and get up close and personal with some of the more famous vehicles from Top Gear – the indestructible Hilux, the ice-hockey playing Swift and the rocket-powered-ski-jumping Mini. As well as the challenge cars (3 old British Leyland vehicles) there were also the visiting cars – a Vauxhall VXR (really a HSV), an Aston-Martin DB9 and an Aston-Martin DBS. Anna set herself the challenge of touching every car in the studio – which she succeeded in!

At about 4pm we were given a quick pep talk about expectations by the show’s manager and then the stars – Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May – were introduced. At this point Jeremy pointed out to us that the manager had tickets to a big football (soccer) game that night, and would therefore want everything to go smoothly so that he could make it to the game in time. Jeremy, Richard and James made frequent reference to this during filming, particularly when retakes were required after (sometimes deliberate) mistakes.

A one point reasonably early on in the show, it was announced that Top Gear had been picked up in Australia (as a new show) – this elicited a cheer from me, which in turn attracted the attention of Jeremy Clarkson. This in turn led to general derision of Australian cars and Australia itself, and whilst I did attempt to defend my country’s honour, Jeremy generally gives little opportunity for rebuttal. Post-filming editing seems to have further reduced any responses I may have had to nil!

Overall, this was a fantastically fun experience. Even Anna, who hadn’t anticipated enjoying it, said afterwards that she had thoroughly enjoyed it. We even got a (small) free feed midway through filming, and we got to sit in the Top Gear chairs on set! Everything was finished by about 7:30pm, and we headed off home. The show was to be broadcast the following Sunday, then again on Monday, and that is when the fun began…

As I mentioned earlier, Top Gear is one of the most watched TV programs in the UK – approximately 11 million people watch, about a quarter of the population! The next week it seemed that a significantly higher proportion than 25% of the school’s population had enquiries about my presence on the show! By the end of the week at least half of the students at school seemed to have asked me about it (most of whom I had never met). I even managed to convince most of them that it couldn’t have been me, and without even lying. However, a number of members of staff also watched the show and recognized me – so I was rumbled! Bear in mind that for most of the week we hadn’t even seen the show, so didn’t actually know what appeared in it. Eventually we downloaded it and discovered there are really just 2 shots of me laughing as Jeremy Clarkson bags out Australia!

However, my 30 seconds of fame was destined to be extended. In the past few weeks back in Australia, there have been TV ads promoting the new Top Gear Australia (they’re also calling for applications for hosts – see the SBS website for details guys). It seems that they wanted a genuine Aussie for the ads, so they have used the footage from my Top Gear UK stint (Season 10 Episode 7 – for those who are interested). We were only made aware of this situation because a number of my former workmates at Gin Gin are also mad Top Gear fans, and have recently expressed their jealous outrage and disbelief!

The final codicil to this little episode is that on Friday, my last day at school, the science staff presented me with a going away present. A copy of Top Gear magazine – a bit of a dig to send me on my way!